April 2011

04/30/2011

Though I have traveled a lot, I would not consider myself well traveled. My parents were great at making sure we saw a lot of the U.S. growing up, I've been to both sides of Mexico and Canada and when I am in Jamaica they welcome me back home, but that is far from being a worldly traveler.

The problem is that when I had the time to go explore Europe and trek through South America I didn't have the money. Now, with the money less of an issue, I don't have the time. And let me be brutally honest, aside from the occasional Star Trek movie, I am not a trekker. I appreciate the outdoors and the rare hike up Lava Lake, but I am not anyone that would spend all of my graduation money on a backpack to carry 3 pairs of underwear, 2 pairs of khaki shorts and a pair of boots through the mountains of Italy. To be Erin means that 95% of my shoes are elevated, my face is rarely without makeup and my hotels are usually rated with enough stars to nearly fill one hand. Though that may cause an eye roll or two, I only speak the truth and I am not really high maintenance, I just like to shower. If you are not like me, I applaud you and your awesome adventures, I can't wait to see the pictures! But there is nothing wrong with me not being you and liking clean sheets and rental cars. I have worked very hard in my life and all of those patent leather shoes, fancy makeup brands and chic hotels are my idea of a good reward for mucho trabajo!

Still that leaves me here in suburbia, attempting to help run a thriving company while a crazy kid runs around with sharp objects. Worldly travel is unfortunetly not on my list of things to do tomorrow. So what is a girl to do? Watch Anthony Bourdain and Samantha Brown with only hope to avoid depression? Not this mascara-ed girl in pumps! I am going to bring a small part of all the countries I want to visit here to visit me!

Here's my plan: There are 10 countries that I would LOVE to go to. Every month I will pick one of these countries and make their ethnic dishes once a week. This won't be easy, my country list holds some cooking challenges, but here I am, at 32, and I would rather the challenge be in my kitchen than while I'm sleeping in some hostel, my pocket holding barely enough foreign currency to amount to much more than a loaf of bread.

On my list you may notice some very popular and I am sure very nice countries missing. For example, I have never wanted to go to Australia. I know they have epic snorkeling but for some horribly odd reason I get terrified of heights while snorkeling. I am not sure how this is possible when it isn't possible to fall down when you are floating but I do! I have tried to overcome this fear only to have a near heart attack in the middle of the Caribbean. England holds very little appeal to me. I love history but I really love the Russian royals, so I skipped over the long lived Queen of England and all her houses. I also skipped over anything in the Caribbean. I have been to Jamaica multiple times and will continue to go there, if it ain't broke don't fix it! So, here is my country list:

Italy- Wine and beauty together, but not being California? Sign me up! Not to mention the fast cars and attractive guys are both home grown! Winner

Russia- I have always wanted to go to Russia. Their country's history has gone through some of the most complex, drastic changes than any other in the world. Sign me up! Not to mention vodka and fancy jeweled eggs! Winner

Ireland- If I die before I go to Ireland then you can cry at my funeral. If not, then be happy that these irish eyes once smiled in Ireland.

Croatia- This place is drop dead gorgeous. If I were to ever get kicked in the head by a mule and changed personalities all together, I would backpack through Croatia.

Fiji- Who doesn't want to go to Fiji? To sleep in a glass bottom (4 star) room over crystal clear waters is heaven to my dreams.

France- South, not Paris. Picture Grace Kelly driving a Porsche directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Picture me pretending to be her when I'm in the south of France.

Vietnam- This is all Anthony Bourdain. He makes this place the Mecca for food loving people. I am that kind of people.

Austria- A grand excuse for chocolate and the Sound of Music. I would love to answer the question; do the hills really come alive?

Spain- In Spain I can imagine nothing being below par. Bread, meat, fish, wine....in Spain I think they must all taste just a little bit better than anywhere else in the world.

Czech Republic- They are like the beer capital of the word. Enough said!

Don't worry about your tray tables, they are fine just where they are. Wanna smoke? Go ahead (I gave up that battle a long time ago!), it's not against FAA regulations to smoke here. Heck, you can even fall asleep while I am cooking and you won't get fired and thrown on the front page of USA Today. No pat downs, lost luggage and your parents won't have to wire you any emergency money. Here, the seats are comfortable and the wine reasonably priced. I am ready for take off!

04/19/2011

I feel that the appropriate time has passed to allow for proper mourning. I also happen to have my Dad's blessing on the subject. I believe that I can now talk about the Jayhawks.

Yes, I am just a girl. A simple game of HORSE would take me a good hour to finish. I grew up in Montana and now live in Washington, far from the heartland and my application to KU would've been denied. But even with these very valid points I am a still a die-hard Jayhawk fan. The term die-hard may not be entirely accurate, it's more like die-trying, sometimes just dead.

My brothers and I were raised this way. My parents and most of our family are proud KU alumni. Red and blue are the colors in our blood.

Time travel with me to a night that may be just another date in time for many, another foggy NCAA Championship memory to some, but to us, it is a crystal clear night of victory. April 4, 1988, the Championship winners. Look up in your history books for the most season losses to still win the championship and you will see the Jayhawks. "Danny and the miracles", the Cinderella cup. The song "I'm a Jayhawk" playing over and over on my Dad's record player while racking up a hefty phone bill from calling everyone in Kansas only to yell "Rock Chalk!" into the receiver. People now have 3D televisions and state of the art sound systems but I assure you that even on our old, manual channel buttoned TV with the blacked out sides from the antenna being struck by lightning too many times, the picture of victory was just as sweet!

Moments like that are what make it all worthwhile, the ultimate fan pay off. But a price we do pay. These guys become part of our lives. Christmas lists are full of their paraphernalia, walls covered in their posters, wardrobes sprinkled with crimson and blue. Kids are not only responsible to remember to press "record" when Dad is out of town, but also not to show any facial expression when he gets home that may give away the outcome of the game. We invite these boys and coaches in to our living rooms every Thursday and Saturday night. Welcome to our humble home Bill, Larry, Danny, Paul, Drew, Nick, Kirk, Raef, CB, Mario. (Roy.) Please, consider yourself at home amongst us, your extended family. Here, we will cheer you on through your entire careers. We will know your stats, watch as you improve your free throws and learn to be a better re-bounder. We will shake our heads when you get caught doing something you shouldn't have been doing and then we will remember that you are just kids and we will chuckle. We will stand up and cheer when you can't miss a three during a game, curse the other team for fouling you too hard and tear up when you hug your mom on Senior Night. You will make mistakes and we will be disappointed, but ultimately, we are still your fans. We will forgive you regardless of how your on the court blunders hurt our pride, cost us money from careless bets and guarantee we will lose nearly every March Madness bracket we fill out. You are forgiven and welcome to come back home whenever you are around. All of you, except Roy that is.

Let me take a pathetic paragraph and throw it away on Roy Williams. We loved Roy (past tense). He was a great coach, leader and man (past tense). My brother went to KU camp every summer and every year he would bring home a picture of him posed with Roy. Hopeful, basketball loving youngster and pleasant basketball coach standing side by side, between them only a basketball. In my parents den you see the series of these pictures, Mark getting older and taller next to Roy getting more grey, the basketball between them the constant that gives the picture itself it's relevance. Roy wasn't just a coach you watched heat up the refs to get the kids fired up in the game, he was part of our lives, part of us fans. It may sound strange, but Roy really made you genuinely love him. With his charming, southern accent, he tugged at our hearts and we believed him when he said that he was born a Tarheel but would die a Jayhawk. (What the hell is a Tarheel anyway?!) "Awe Roy, whatta guy! Yes, you have come this close to winning (which only means that he lost) but we appreciate your loyalty. We love you, welcome to our humble home. You should really check out the pictures in our den!"

Travel back to when I sat in a bar and cried when we lost to Syracuse in the 2003 championship. It was a big screen TV with a state of the art sound system and I assure you the pain of defeat was just as bad. I sat with my heartbreak and watched Roy come out for the press conference, the royal blue and crimson tie with his grey suite and white hair that used to look so good on him. He thanked the kids and the fans and he cried with us. He was born a Tarheel but would die a Jayhawk. Does that mean he's dead then?

We've moved on. Bill is great though I think it was hard for us to jump 100% on his wagon at first. Bill is all coach, Mr. Basketball rather than an emotional manipulatore like some people we know, but will not mention (again). When it comes down to it, Bill would definitely kick Roy's ass in a boxing match and that brings a smile to my face.

Jump ahead 5 years from our Championship loss with Roy to the 2008 Final Four with our Bill. KU vs. (hmm...who could it be now?!) North Carolina. Good vs. Evil. I decided to keep it low key by throwing a huge party. Jump ahead 5 years from me sitting on a bar stool, crying to a bar TV to me screaming at the top of my lungs in joy to the TV in our basement. Pan over to the innocent people sitting on our couch that are staring at me, thinking that if this was their house they would kick me out but will instead just think twice before coming to another one of these parties. Notice the spit on the TV from me screaming obscenities at Roy whenever the camera caught his losing face. Notice the poor girl in the sleeping back whose boyfriend is dragging her around the house. (Side story all together, but still proves that it was a crazy fun night!!). Go ahead and time travel another 48 hours to us winning the NCAA Championship. Open up your history books to the most winnings in the season of any championship winner and you see the Jayhawks. While you are there look up the term, "Mario's Miracle". Go ahead and play the fight song, Dad!

Well, I guess since we have the time machine already out, we might as well not waste precious gas and go to March 2010 (you really would think that a time machine would be beyond gas....) We lose in the 2nd round to a "what's the name of your school again?" team. Go ahead and look for first #1 seed to lose in the second round in your history books and you will see the Jayhawks. Move onto this year, losing to VCU. The song, Black and Yellow no longer in any of my playlists. Open the book to the year the Jayhawks should have won it all and you will see UConn instead. This was our year, we gave it away. Good bye twins, you are welcome back to our living room if you're ever around.

My sports time machine is a very basic model. I could have splurged for the solar powered model that could also go into the future, but I didn't. The sun is never out here for the solar panels and I would hate to see the Jayhawks future anyway. I was always horrible at hiding my smile after they won!

Of course I may have to at least test drive the upgraded model just to check out the NFL this coming September......

04/15/2011

There are three things that I would love to be able to change about myself: My disdain of mushrooms, my inability to handle any form of criticism and my psychotic fear of flying.

Of course there are many other little personal annoyances I have. My horrid eye sight, my grammatical abuse of the exclamation point and comma and my large calves, but these are trivial things. Life goes on with contact lenses, sentences that have the punctuation of a tourettes patient and high heels.

It's those first three that I feel just don't fit in well with my lifestyle and I wish I could do something about them.

Mushrooms, I really should like them! I am a food fan (probably not helping my calf problem) and I wish I was fanatic about them! I wish I could be one of those people that knew just when the fungi (that word alone is gross!) variety was in season for mushroom risotto, savory crepe filling, marsala sauce.... But no, I hate them. They are rubbery, brown-gray colored and aside from their bad taste, they are tasteless. You know when you hate something so much that when you watch someone eat it you are actually disgusted? When I watch someone eat mushrooms, I am actually envious of them liking them. I wish I could. I don't.

Criticism. A personality issue rather than a bad taste bud one, my feelings are super wimps and annoyingly easily bruised. To avoid criticism on this topic I am not going to even talk about it.

Lastly, my real point, flying. I have lived away from home most of my life. Growing up in Montana, I considered Kansas my home. Now, living in Washington, Montana is my home. Unless you live far from home to avoid your family (I happen to adore mine!! ((double exclamation point)) ), life away from home requires a lot of travel. People that live at home buy $1200 plane tickets after saving up for Hawaii or counting down on their calendar to their trip to Europe. But people that live away from home spend thousands just to see the people they love. Vacation days aren't used on cruises or at all-inclusive resorts, they are spent eating their moms meatloaf, getting their dad's advice, hanging out with their brothers. Growing up, some kids had Disneyland or Space Camp, I had KU and Worlds of Fun.

As a kid this was not a bad thing, this was awesome!! Summer break didn't just mean no school, it meant seeing your grandparents, your aunts and uncles, your cousins....everyone was a special treat. But special treats that are 1173 miles away meant that getting there wasn't as easy as "over the river and through the woods", it's a trek, and with 4 kids in tow, a quest. Though we did make the journey via various station wagons many times (those stories warrant their own page) our usual mode of transportation was literally over many rivers and over many mountain ranges, in a plane.

Window seats, getting the full can of Coke, turbulence that made your stomach drop, upgrades to first class where they served dessert, taking off so fast that you couldn't lean forward in your seat, plastic wing pins, sitting in the cockpit with the pilots...these things defined flying as a kid in the '80's. It was awesome! We didn't need portable DVD players, iPhones in airplane mode or PS2's, just flying was entertainment enough! Pilots were heros and flight attendants were like models with personalities and navy blue skirt suits. And let's just be honest, they were stewardesses back then, and they were ok with that!

I've been in planes that have been struck by lightening, a plane that needed it's landing gear manually cranked down, countless blizzards and thunderstorms and watched my brother throw up on a very nice business man. (HA!) I was never afraid. My Dad flew every week and I trusted it.

Then I watched a made for TV movie of this horrific plane crash. In the beginning of the movie you are getting to know all the characters while they walk down the aisle to their seats, just like you do in real life. Checking out what they are wearing, what they are carrying, what they have to read, all to create your hypothesis on where they are going and why. You wait to see what kind of drink they order and you feel like you know everything about this person, when all you've seen is the left side of their head. In the movie a little boy notices a tear in the ceiling and he shows it to his mom before they take off, she tells him it's nothing. 45 minutes into the movie, they are over the Pacific, plane torn in half, a bloody mess. That's when I started looking at the ceilings of the planes and less and less what kind of shoes people were wearing as they passed me in the aisle.

The next flight I took wasn't as enjoyable. I started to realize that I had no idea how the hunk of steel got into the air and stayed there. I am also pretty sure the flight attendant didn't give me the full can of Coke. I started having reoccurring plane dreams. We were always flying underneath a highway underpass or below telephone wires. To this day I still have those dreams. Then, Sept 11, 2001. I was sure I would never fly again.

As I type this, I am on a plane from Bozeman to Seattle. Charlie is in my lap, sound a sleep from the loudness of the engines and our little plane being thrown around a half mile above some mountain range. Upon sitting down I overheard the flight attendants talk about how rough it was coming here. The pilot then came on and said that due to the bumpy air (how is this even a term?) he is going to have the crew just stay seated until we reach the Idaho boarder. I told myself that I wouldn't drink, but there is a glass of Chardonnay in my hand right now, and it won't be there long. I've been on this flight before and have learned my lesson of turning down their libation offerings before. On a stormy night in November we were the last flight allowed to land at Seatac. While our lives were passing before our eyes and I was talking my son's baptism into my own hands, people were begging for beer. That won't be me today, I'm planning ahead!

$40 to check in a bag, small seats, hour long security lines, standing on airport floors in bare feet, no liquids, no snacks, no free upgrades, no blankets, no pillows, no smoking, pat downs, $12 in-flight meals, the cock pit is locked shut, and the flight attendants are tired and stressed, but the wine in my hand is free and I am going home. If we land today I will say "Priceless!", then maybe I'll try a mushroom again!!